Since Landon was just a tiny baby, we found a hand-me-down plush duck toy. The kind where you pull the ring at the bottom and it would play a sweet lullaby. Landon never went a night without him, except maybe a few, and even those nights were restless and he would cry for a good amount of time before falling asleep. Up to this day he has had the same duck. It went from yellow to a dirt stained color, it no longer played music, and most of the fuzz on its nose was gone from being sucked and chewed on.. But Landon still loved him either way.
One night we came home from Nana's house, he's asleep so I put him on the couch, by this time I already realized all the cotton spread across the floor. I looked everywhere trying to figure out where it came from. I thought maybe it was from the couch.. As I went to shut the door I caught a glimpse of Landon's duck's feet hiding behind it, also surrounded by cotton.. Before I even started walking over there I was already saying to myself 'No, no, noooo' pleading to whoever that the stuffing on the floor wasn't from his duck.. By the time I reached it I was already crying, the tears already reached my jaw bones. Once I picked him up and have him a look, the hysteria began. And Landon didn't even know yet because he was sleeping? Yet here I am bawling my eyes out because I know once he does see it, his big little heart is going to be torn to pieces...
I went to the car to grab other things I couldn't get before.. When I got back inside Sizer had already tried jumping on the couch and Landon and woke him up. I walked in the door and he was crying standing by the couch. I run over and scoop him up in my arms, he's crying and i'm already emotional so I cry again.. I sit down on the couch, him in my lap, and I lift up his duck to show him what Sizer did... and he loses it. He began crying SO badly. I just held him as tight as I could while we cried together.. for the next 30 minutes or so.
Luckily, we had a previous scare where we thought we lost his duck, Theron found the same one online and ordered it. It was sitting safely over at Theron's moms house. So that next day he got another duck, not the same old worn out one he loved... but it was going to have to do.. It took him only a day to warm up to him, I had to do a couple modifications to him to make him look more like his old one.
I am keeping his other duck, well.. whats left of it. The body is still fairly intact. the head is not fixable though. But I had always planned to keep him forever. He is the most important thing Landon had grown up with, so it's important to me also. We will be making sure this new duck is kept put away when he's not using it, to avoid anymore duckie disasters.
